The princess then proceeded to trace diabolical characters in the air, and to utter great words which Pacorrito had never heard before, and which were neither Latin, Chinese, nor Chaldean. He concluded that they were Tyrolese. When this was consummated, the lady threw her arms about Migajas, saying,-- "Now you are my husband. I have the power of marrying, and also of receiving neophytes into our Great Law. My darling little prince, may you be blessed through time everlasting!" And the whole court of figures entered, singing, "Through time everlasting!" to the accompaniment of canaries and nightingales. XII. They all promenaded through the parlors in couples. Migajas gave his arm to his royal consort. "What a pity," said she, "that our hours of pleasure should be so brief! Soon we shall have to return to our places." His Serene Highness, Migajas, from the moment of his transformation, had begun to experience the queerest sensations. The strangest of these consisted in his having lost the sense of taste and the notion of food. All he had eaten lay within him as though his stomach had been a basket containing a thousand pasteboard viands which he did not digest, which had no substance, weight, taste, or nourishment. Moreover, he was no longer master of his movements, and was compelled to keep time when he walked, which was a difficult thing to do. He felt himself growing hard, as though he were being turned to bone, wood, or clay. He thumped himself, and behold! his body resounded like porcelain. His clothes, too, had grown hard, and were in every respect precisely like his body. When he found himself alone with his little wife and clasped her to his bosom, he experienced no human or divine sensation of pleasure,--nothing but the harsh shock of two hard, cold bodies. He kissed her cheek; it was frozen. In vain did his hungry spirit call upon nature. Nature in him was what it is in a piece of pottery. He felt his heart throbbing like the machinery of a watch. His thoughts alone survived; the rest was all unfeeling matter. The princess seemed very happy. "What is the matter, my love?" said she, observing Pacorrito's expression of distress. "I am weary, bored, bored to death, my dear," said the lover, gaining assurance. "You will get accustomed to it. O happy hours! If this lasted much longer, we could not endure it!" "Does your Highness call this happiness?" observed Migajas. "What coldness, what emptiness, what rigidity!" "The after-taste of human things still lingers in your soul, and you are still a slave to the views of your depraved human senses. Pacorrito, I shall have to implore you to control these paroxysms, or you will be the demoralization and destruction of every living doll." "Life! life! blood! heat!" shouted Migajas, in despair, gesticulating like a maniac. "What is happening to me?" The princess clasped him to her bosom, and kissing him with her red, waxen lips, exclaimed: